Mueller Warns of Active Russian Meddling, Seeks Disclosure Lid

U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller warned that Russian intelligence services have active “interference operations” in the U.S. and asked a judge to limit the pretrial evidence provided to a Russian firm indicted over meddling in the 2016 election.

Mueller asked a federal judge in Washington for an order that would protect the handover of voluminous evidence to lawyers for Concord Management and Consulting LLC, one of three companies and 13 Russian nationals charged in a February indictment. They are accused of producing propaganda, posing as U.S. activists and posting political content on social media as so-called trolls to encourage strife in the U.S.

The threat of public or unauthorized disclosure of evidence would help foreign intelligence services, particularly in Russia, in “future operations against the United States,” Mueller’s prosecutors wrote in a filing Tuesday.

“The substance of the government’s evidence identifies uncharged individuals and entities that the government believes are continuing to engage in interference operations like those charged in the present indictment,” prosecutors wrote.

Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would “allow foreign actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations,” according to the filing.

The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with crimes who prosecutors say were unwittingly recruited by Russian defendants and co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors wrote.